


Age 15: Sam Vimes Jr Asks for Advice

by catintheinfinite (michelle439731)



Series: A Difficult Age [3]
Category: Discworld - Terry Pratchett
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-30
Updated: 2018-07-30
Packaged: 2019-06-18 23:33:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,874
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15497283
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/michelle439731/pseuds/catintheinfinite
Summary: It's not easy being the heir to a fortune when everyone wants a slice.





	Age 15: Sam Vimes Jr Asks for Advice

Sam seemed to settle in his fifteenth year.  He was still small but Sybil had assured him that he would grow out of that, all the Ramkin men had been small to being with. Vimes had no such reassurances for his son, he had stopped growing at fifteen but that had been when the meat had run out so there was likely some correlation there.  Sam had started trying to reconnect with his father, on his own terms this time. He would often come and meet him at the end of the day and walk back up the road home for dinner. Sybil was delighted. Vimes tried to negotiate his way home without causing an explosion. He wasn’t always successful.  

The sun was out today and Sam had arrived in a good mood but the boy obviously had something on his mind that needed airing out.  Sam got twitchy when he kept secrets. Part of Vimes wanted to teach him how to conceal it, another part (the part more concerned with being a good parent) was glad that he was still able to forecast the emotions of his son and dreaded the day he turned to look at Sam Vimes Jr and saw a blank wall.

Today Sam wanted to talk about the Guild.  “It’s pretty easy to spy on people for the Assassins.  I tried to explain that I thought it was cheating but they said it was perfectly fine to use all my, erm, talents to get a head of the competition.  I’m sure it counts as cheating.” Sam scuffed his feet and lapsed into silence giving his father no further information on the topic.

“What do you mean?” encouraged Vimes.

“I just swap for families that have daughters about marrying age.  They’ve just started assigning me them as, I don’t know, niche skill I guess.”

“How is that cheating if they are assigning these families to you?”  Vimes normally tried to stay far away from his sons education as an assassin, both physically and conversationally.  Just because Sam was being schooled there didn’t mean he was going to take it as a career move of course. Sam had been pretty against joining the Watch last time Vimes brought it up so he wasn’t about to do that again.

“Well I just go round, ring the front door bell and tell them I’ve come a courting.”  Sam looked at him. Vimes didn’t like this look. His son was looking for an answer to a question that he hadn’t asked.  Vimes would have said that fifteen was a difficult age but so far every age had a been a difficult age for his son. He wished he could go back to the time when he could just read him a book, pick him up and put him to bed.

“Courting?  Are you courting any of them?”  His son kept his personal life very personal, not a lot of friends as far as Vimes could tell.  Oh, lots of people who knew him but confidants, Vimes wasn’t sure.

 

“It was a mistake the first time.  Old Man Likely caught me sneaking around and it just came to me cause I remembered about Rebecca.  I just said that I was trying to sneak in to see her and suddenly I was invited in for tea and ‘wasn’t I a nice boy’, ‘no need to be sneaking around here’.”

Once again Sam looked at him for an answer to this question, for a piece of advice that Vimes felt dangerously unqualified to give.

“And you think that’s cheating?  You want more of a challenge?” Sam made a face and Vimes knew he was asking the wrong questions.  It wasn’t about the level of difficulty, it wasn’t the appearance of cheating by his son, and it wasn’t the guild.  “You don’t like pretending to court these young ladies?”

That was the wrong question too.  Sam stuffed his hands in his pockets, looked down at his feet and kicked a stone.  Vimes could smell the storm brewing, clouding over the face of his son. At this point he had two options,the first option meant heading straight home and not say anything else so as not to tear their relationship any more.  The second, and more dangerous option was to ask his son to be specific. Which was tricky as fifteen was a tricky age to be definite about. They would need to take the long way home and his son would know what he was up to and if he didn’t want to talk then it would just be a longer time before they got home and give him even more time to get even madder at his dad. 

Sybil would be upset if they came home mad at each other.  They spent most of their time mad at each other these days.  Vimes was flying without a guide. He had been fatherless by this age and had bigger things to worry about such as eating, avoiding the old gangs and learning to be a copper so his family could afford rent that week.

He made a decision.

They turned off the main road and Vimes lit a cigar.  He tried not to smoke around Sam but he was making this gesture to show they were just two men walking home together, putting the world to rights.  He didn’t want to use interrogation techniques on his son but desperate times called for desperate measures. His son did want to talk, Vimes could tell that at least.

“This isn’t the way home,” said Sam.

“We’re taking the long way.”  Vimes tried dropping a fishing line into the conversation.  “Your girlfriend doesn’t like you pretending to do this?”

“Da-ad!”  Sam looked around in case someone had heard his old man asking after his love life.  Then, in a small voice, “I don’t have a girlfriend.”

“Boyfriend?”

“No.  Look. This is stupid.  It’s not a problem. Lets just take the short way home.”

‘Not a problem’ was code for a you won’t think it’s a problem and ‘stupid’ was code for ‘I don’t know how to fix this myself’.  Vimes could see the storm clouds in his sons face, he could also see how much he needed help. Vimes had always thought better when he walked and he hoped his son did too.  They had walked a lot together when he had been younger. Vimes had said to anyone who asked (or was passing) that he was teaching his son the ways of Ankh-Morpork. Sam had accused Vimes of parading him around the city simply to show the boy off to any stranger who happened to be passing.  Vimes had realised too last that this had only been partially true but Sam had cut off their regular excursions. They still occasionally walked together but not like they used to. Vimes missed it so much.

Hehad learned not to poke if his son had said no to a question.  The ‘no’ might not have been the truth but it was more important that he had a father who believed what he said and didn’t follow up every lie with ‘are you sure?’.  So no more asking about girlfriends. They walked some more as Vimes steeled himself to take another run up against the smooth walls of his sons.

What Vimes needed was more information, repeating what the suspect had said last was a tried and true interrogation technique.  “Lord Likely caught you and invited you in for tea?”

“Yes.”  Sam exclaimed.  “Can you believe that?  You’d never invite a practice assassin in for tea would you?”

Gottcha, thought Vimes.  The conversation hit a reset button, Vimes had opened the right door.  He knew what his son thought about what Vimes thought about assassins. Now he had to ask the right question next but now there was a chink of blue sky to guide him.  Again his son was looking at him for advice on how to handle this situation of Lord Likely finding him sneaking about in the bushes and inviting him in for tea instead of sending him away with a flea in his ear.

It wasn’t as if his son was asking for an etiquette lesson.  He wouldn’t be asking his dad for that sort of advice. He didn’t need advice of that sort in any case.  He had been taught all that by his mother and taken to it like a duck to water. There were still tantrums and tension but when he had to perform or charm or play host to any sort of lord or lady then he was as composed and as born to do it as his mother.   Vimes Jr however swung between pride at this skill and desperate depression understanding his father’s opinion of people who were born to do little else.

Vimes wasn’t about to open another door without thinking about the room he had just entered. The brains in his legs carried him the long way home and the brains in his head assessed the situation.  

So Lord Likely invited him in for tea.  Sam had been for tea there before, with Sybil of course, when he had been younger.  Likely had a daughter so that it was seen as the done thing for people to meet each other.  Especially any of the girls who would be homeschooled or boarded with other young ladies. Forging allegiances and making pacts before any other friendships formed when the kids were apprenticed.  This had been several years ago now, Sam was just about to start at the assassins school and it had been a difficult time. 

“He invited you in for tea.”  Vimes again repeated his sons words back to him and heard an off note. Courting his daughter?  Sam didn’t have a girlfriend, or made any conversation about wanting one or getting one. Not that he would tell his father but Sam would have told his mother and Sybil would have told him.  Vimes had been interested enough in girls at that age and he had been dirt poor with a rusty watchman’s armor. His son should have been able to date two or three girls at a time, he was sure he remembered the nobs of his days picking out several girls to court at once.  Why would he not be interested in at least courting Likely’s daughter, at least for the experience?

“He thought you were there to court his daughter?”  Weren’t fathers supposed to be very protective of their daughters?  Vimes was sure he was circling in on something though.

“That was just the excuse that I gave.  It had been a while since I was there and I couldn’t remember how old she was!”  Sam’s face closed down and he looked back to in the direction of the main road. They had gone too far now to turn back and thtey both knew it.  Vimes tried to remember how old the Likely’s daughter was. They had a son who had been about as old as Sam was now when they had last visted a couple of years ago. He had stayed in his bedroom the whole time but Vimes remembered that the daughter, she was a little closer to Sam in age, just in the opposite direction.  She was two or three years younger and had sat very prettily and answered questions. That meant now she would be about…

“Good god she’s twelve!”  Vimes feet carried on and took a left thinking he was on his old beat, even further away from their house and safety from this conversation.  “And Lord Likely invited you in for tea because you said you were courting her?” No wonder his son had wanted to talk. 

“Yes and then I had to say that I was courting other girls to stop him going round telling everyone that me and Rebecca had some sort of contract.  So I just mostly go around telling fathers that I’m courting their daughters.” 

Vimes almost said something but he saw his sons face, something else was there just under the surface.  He just needed to keep calm and not jerk the rod too much to reel in the fish, just let it sit there. There was a second sentence just waiting to come out.  Come on, come on, he willed his son to trust him with what had been bothering him. Something that was bigger than just one girls father wanting someone to marry his daughter.

“I’m Ankh-Morkporks most eligible bachelor.”

Vimes was horrified.  “You are fifteen!”

“Yeah, but like, I’m supposed to think about these things.  You are supposed to have arrangements and stuff in place before hand.  I know some of the other lads do and it’s not stopping Gwendalin from,” Sam stopped before Vimes could find out what Gwendalin was not stopped from doing.  “I, um, I asked mum about it because I figured she was the rich one so she would have had something happen to her but she said that she wasn’t interested in all that when she was my age and to make up my own mind and to, um, talk to you about it.”

“Talk to me about it?”

“Yeah because you probably had lots of experience with girlfriends.”  That final word was said in whisper. Sam was not comfortable talking with his father about this but he did need to talk about it and Vimes was so glad that he had started but now Vime felt even more inadequate as a father. That seemed to be all Sams teenage years seemed to be; just a list of things that Vimes had no experience with that he had to mentor his son through.  

‘Lots of experience with girlfriends’?  He had no idea what impression Sybil had given Sam of his history.  When they had compared past relationships it had turned out the one who had the most experience with girlfriends was Sybil.  The only woman he’d had any experience worth remembering was with Sybil and he was reminded every day how different she was to most of the woman he’d ever met.

“I’m not sure how much help I can give you.  Do you want me to speak to Lord Likely?”

“No.” On this point Sam was definite.  “It would only look like you two were making designs.  Besides it’s not like Rebecca is chasing me herself. I did have to get mum to have a world with Lady Rowen.”

“Lady Rowen?” Vimes racked his brains.  A widow they had visited several times and whom Sybil sent regular letters to.  She didn’t have any children of her own. “Wait, is this why we don’t go round Peachtrees House anymore?”

“Apparently she’d made ‘enquiries’ and she ain’t the only dowager either.  So I was wondering if there was something I should do. Do you think if I had a girlfriend,” again the world was said in a whisper, “they’d sort of back off a bit?”

“You shouldn’t court someone to stop someone else from trying to court you.  That’s just a big circle of disappointment. I thought you and Constable Watt had been getting more chummy recently?”

Vimes had avoided asking Sam about this and had tried not looking directly at this relationship lest it vanished under observation.  Sam had turned up several times after her shift to take her to breakfast but Vimes didn’t know if it had gone any further. 

Sam rubbed his cheeks.  “I, um, approached the idea of and agreement with her but she just said she was too sensible for that sort of thing.”

Vimes felt for his son.  “Look Sam if you are not enjoying pretending to court these girls, or women, then you can stop.”

“But the guild” whined Sam, not quite a grown man yet.

“Stuff the guild.”  Vimes was waving his cigar about and his feet now pointed towards home.  “I know what you think I think about the Assassins Guild but if it’s not making you happy you can stop doing it.  Policing used to be a lousy profession but I always did it because it was in my soul. I stopped, because...”

“Because you got old.” Sam interjected but he was smiling.

“Because I wanted something else more.  And yes because I got old. I’m never going to stop being a police officer but I don’t need to be doing it all the time.  You are worried about this but you don’t have to be. You can court, or not court anyone you want. You don’t have to do it out of some obligation.  Look at me and your mum, took a bloody great dragon falling out the sky for us to end up together.” Sam smiled, he loved that story. His mother had told it often and it had become extremely embroidered over the years.  “I can’t give you any advice on how to “court” women, but I can tell you to only do it out of love not because you’ve got a name or an inheritance.”

They walked in silence until they reached the front gate.

“How did I do on the advice?”  Vimes couldn’t help but ask.

“Yeah,” was all Sam said but Vimes felt that was enough.


End file.
